Yet another meat labelling scandal has come to light in Japan’s meat industry, this time executed by a chicken meat processing company affiliated with the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zen-Noh).
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Toda, Saitama Prefecture-based Zen-Noh Chicken Foods Corp sold seven tons of “chicken spare ribs” from Thailand and China as higher-priced domestic produce throughout Japan during the latter half of November until the middle of December 2001.
Company officials revealed the scam at a news conference yesterday [Monday], explaining that a sales chief from its Tokyo metropolitan branch ordered the foreign meat to be relabelled as the prestigious “Kagoshima” brand from southern Japan because sales were soaring in response to the BSE scare.
Japanese farm ministry investigators raided the company’s offices after the revelation, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries ministry official Hideto Kanke said that they will also look into allegations that Kagoshima Chicken Foods Co helped Zen-Noh Chicken carry out the scam.
Farm minister Tsutomu Takebe slammed the company’s actions, saying that the scam was “a betrayal (of the trust of) the Japanese people and consumers”.
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